Tag Archives: kitty

When we manage to eat at the actual dining table, Sydney always makes sure he’s perched in his seat, looking beseechingly in our direction. It is awkward and hilarious to explain to guests that they’re “sitting in the cat’s chair” when they come over for dinner. (Why yes, he does have a favorite. Why do you ask?)

Sydney is not allowed to go outside. Well, ok, he’s not allowed to go outside unsupervised, as has been proven by several earlier Caturday photo sessions. This is beside the point. He’s not allowed to go outside for several reasons, the primary ones being that our street dead ends into a freeway sound wall (where there are, at any given time, dozens of cars under which he could find himself), we have a regular amount of fear about him being hit by a car that’s not going 80 miles per hour on said freeway and just cruising around our neighborhood, and the fact that he is a male cat (albeit a neutered one). It may be because of this prohibition that he spends much of his time looking out windows with a look of pure yearning on his face. “Why,” his sad eyes ask us, “will you never allow me the sweet taste of freedom?” Well. Too bad, cat.

At about 4:12 this morning (last night? Who knows. It was early, is what I’m getting at here), his best revenge to date was achieved. Both GP and I woke up to the sounds of what we would soon find out was a single-sided catfight. To our sleep-addled minds, however, anything could have been happening! The cat could be on fire! (We’d had a fire in the fireplace that we’d assumed had long been turned to ash by that point.) There could be some other animal– a mouse, a rat, an opossum, an angry cougar– in our house! When we stumbled into the living room, eventually identified as the site of all this ruckus, we found Sydney…and that was it. The blinds that afford us some privacy through our mostly-glass front door had been partially destroyed, presumably during a confrontation he’d had with another cat that was on the other side of the door. I mean, come on, cat. He does some stupid things, but I usually allow myself to think that he’s reasonably intelligent. After last night, though, I don’t even know what to think, other than, “God, we’re going to need new blinds soon.”

This morning, he returned to the scene of the crime. Constant vigilance!

So, it is about 70 degrees outside. Our front and back doors are open, and a little breeze is working its way through the bungalow. Aside from being a vast improvement over the Horrible Gray that presided over much of last week, it also presents a certain cat with opportunities to venture outside. With supervision, of course (you’ve already seen what happens when it’s really nice outside and he gets all harnessed up)…

Clearly I’ve fallen off the #reverb10 wagon, but I’m stashing those prompts away so that I’ll have something to unstick me when I feel like I have nothing to say. The last week and a half have been active, but mostly pleasantly so: a big work project completed, Christmas shopping and cards completed, settling into the holidays with relatively minimal stress. I watched White Christmas earlier today (I know, someone as obsessed with Christmas as I am should have seen it years ago), and am currently recording Miracle on 34th Street, another classic that somehow slipped from my grasp (must have been all those years watching Christmas Vacation umpteen times). I can’t really believe that, within a week, we’ll have exchanged our gifts, gorged ourselves on sugar cookies (which, fine, still need to be decorated– but are at least made!), and braved nearly a week of forecast rain. For now, we’re cozy.

All is calm…

All is bright…

And it’s the perfect sort of night for some eggplant parm (with some modifications, naturally) and foccacia.